Megan sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”
With Megan’s allergies, that came as no surprise. Before Katy could disagree, a feminine shriek filled the air, and somebody shouted, “Smoke! Kitchen fire!”
A chaos of activity followed the pronouncement. Women gasped. Chairs scraped and clattered. Aghast, Katy jumped up, too, thrusting her finger. “Look!” Small puffs of smoke wafted through the kitchen’s pass-through window. She couldn’t hear Megan’s response above the mass of feminine hysteria.
Inez flew to the front of the room, her covering strings flying behind her. The older woman clapped her hands until she had most of their attention. Her curt voice shot orders to the nervous crowd. “Everyone. Move out to the parking lot! Move orderly. But hurry!”
Now the women started to act with purpose, crowding toward the entrance, all the while casting worried glances toward the kitchen.
But Katy remained riveted, her mind scrambling for ways to help before exiting.
“What about Lil?” Megan shouted.
Snatching up her purse, Katy unclamped her lips. “There’s an exit in the kitchen. She’s closer to the door than we are.” Starting down the aisle between the rows of vacating chairs, Katy took a final glance behind her and stopped. “Elizabeth!”
Megan swung her gaze around.
The pregnant woman sat stunned, glued to her metal folding chair like a queen ruling over a sea of packages and tissue paper. Quickly running back to her, Katy urged. “Elizabeth! We have to leave the building.”
Elizabeth cupped her palms over her swollen stomach and nodded, but still didn’t budge.
Katy stepped over gifts and bent over her. “What’s wrong?” Surely she wasn’t going into labor?
“The baby’s gifts. I—”
Understanding, Katy gripped Elizabeth’s arm and pulled her to her swollen feet. She glanced toward the jammed exit and made a quick decision. “We’ll help you get them.”
Katy swept a few gifts off the floor and handed them up to the dazed woman.
“Megan, what are you waiting for?” Anita Weaver suddenly loomed over them with a frightened expression.
Katy shoved a pink gift bag into the older woman’s hand. Then Megan and her mom hurried to gather as many gifts as they could.
“Let’s go,” Anita urged.
The three women juggled gifts and pushed Elizabeth toward the exit, all of their gazes fixed on the thick smoke billowing into the back of the room and the bright flames now visible as well, flickering up through the pass-through window.
“We waited too long,” Anita cried. “Hurry, girls.”
They tried to run, but the area next to the exit was filled with stifling smoke. Worried for Elizabeth in her pregnant state, Katy yelled, “Hold your breath.”
After that, they didn’t speak. They reached the rear of the frantic bodies packing and blocking the exit where the smoke-filled multipurpose room narrowed into a hall. A handmade receiving blanket slipped out of Elizabeth’s arms and fell to the floor. With a shriek, she halted.
Anita whipped it up off the floor.
The line steadily moved, and as soon as they stumbled outside, they all took welcome draughts of the fresh air. Katy found herself coughing much like she had with the drywall dust, but with each inhalation of uncontaminated air, her breathing became more normal.
Inez urged, “Keep moving so others can come out.”
“We were at the end of the line,” Katy informed her. The woman nodded with relief and ran toward the other door, which was the kitchen’s exit.
Katy instantly remembered Lil and lunged after Inez, but Ivan Miller blocked her path. He moved around Katy and swept Elizabeth into a quick embrace that knocked several gift boxes to the ground.
“Thank God, you’re okay.” The young husband’s voice was husky with worry.
Feeling a touch at her elbow, Katy turned. David gave her a worried nod, his gaze darting nervously to the building and back at Ivan. He moved past her and stopped beside his brother. “We’d better check inside.”
Ivan reluctantly released his wife. “Go wait in the car, honey. The smoke isn’t good for the baby.”
Elizabeth nodded but stooped to pick up the packages her husband had recklessly knocked to the ground. Involuntarily, Katy stooped to help as her worried gaze followed David and Ivan into the smoky building. Torn with which entrance to use to go search for Lil, she watched them until they disappeared.
“No!” Elizabeth lunged, belatedly, after Ivan.
But Anita snatched Elizabeth’s arm. “Don’t,” she reprimanded. “Let the men go.”
Megan interrupted her mother. “Do you think Lil and others are trapped in the kitchen?”
Alarm sprinted up Katy’s spine at Anita’s stricken expression, and she quickly pressed, “Can you take Elizabeth to the car?”
The older woman clamped her lips together for a moment, then replied, “Only if you both stay put, out of danger’s way.” At Anita’s stern look, Megan nodded for the both of them. Katy couldn’t promise anything until she knew Lil was safe. Anita draped her arm around Elizabeth, moving the distraught woman toward the parking lot.
Katy’s fingers imprinted the soft gift boxes she still clutched. “Oh Lil. Where are you?” She whipped her gaze to Megan. “She must be inside.”
Flames now flickered through the kitchen exterior windows. Megan clenched her fists at her side. “We have to go get her.”
In the distance they heard a siren. Somewhere along the kitchen’s exterior wall, Katy had dropped the gifts. Outside the door, she shrugged someone’s hand off her shoulder and grabbed the door handle. But she quickly released the hot metal. Her shoulder jerked back under a firm grip. She glanced back. Inez warned, “Don’t do it!”
Frantically, Katy looked around. She needed padding to open the door handle. For the first time, she realized none of them had bothered to fetch their coats or gloves. Hysterically searching her body for something to put over the door’s handle, she cried, “But Lil’s in there.”
Inez clamped her arm on her shoulder again. “I hear the fire truck.”
Before she could resist, Megan cried, “Look, Katy! Lil’s safe!”
Katy whipped her gaze around, and saw Lil and Mrs. Landis standing by the opposite exit with David and Ivan.
Katy ran to them with relief, her voice laced with fear-induced anger. “Where were you?”
“I don’t know. The men found us. We couldn’t get the fire out. It blocked the door. When we left the kitchen, it was so hazy we couldn’t see.”
“Are you all right?”
Lil nodded. “I think so.”
A red fire truck screamed into the parking lot. Three men in dark-blue uniforms barreled down and rushed to the building.
Mrs. Landis turned away to speak to Inez. Shivering, Lil rubbed her arms, and the three girls huddled together, watching.
One fireman swung an ax thru the kitchen window. A second stuck a hose through it while the third man ran to them and questioned Ivan.
“What happened in there?” Katy asked.
“Did you hear that crash earlier?” Lil asked.
Katy nodded.
“We dropped a punch bowl. There was a huge mess. Anyway, we all chipped in to clean it up. I think somebody forgot what they were doing. The fire started from the area where there was a slow-cooker and a big coffeepot.”
“But how would those start a fire?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope it wasn’t my fault,” Mrs. Landis moaned, stepping into their circle. “Somebody could have been killed.”
“It’s nobody’s fault. It was an accident,” Megan assured her, but the older woman looked stricken.
David returned from speaking with some firemen. He looked glum, disheveled, and sooty.
“Everybody out?” Katy asked.
“As far as we know. The firemen are checking now.” They both glanced over where one of the professionals was wetting down the m
eetinghouse.
“You think the meetinghouse will catch on fire?”
“I don’t know. The fellowship hall’s ruined.”
“But you found Lil.” Katy’s emotions suddenly overwhelmed her. “What if you hadn’t been here?”
“I just came to help Ivan pack up the gifts. We came early to sneak some cake. When we got here, we saw women rushing out of the building. Then we saw the fire. While Ivan looked for Elizabeth, I called the fire department.” He glanced toward the parking lot. “How is she?”
“I don’t know. Anita Weaver took her to the car like Ivan requested.”
A crashing noise commanded their attention. They stared at the fire in riveted horror. Part of the roof had caved in, and a new flurry of flames and smoke drove them farther away from the building.
As they stood dazed, more help arrived. A barricade was soon erected. At some point, David removed his coat and placed it across Katy’s shoulders. She heard him say, “They want those cars moved. If you give me your keys, I’ll move yours.”
She dug into her purse and handed him the keys. “Thanks.”
“Dumplin’?” Katy nearly broke down at her dad’s touch. She turned into his sturdy embrace, clinging to him for a long while.
When she drew away, she asked, “How did you find out?”
“Lil called her dad. Will started the prayer chain.” He motioned behind him. “I parked down the street. I had to make sure you were all right. Your mom’s real worried.”
“I think everybody’s okay.”
“According to Will, Rose is pretty upset. She’s worried she may have been the one who started the fire. She remembers setting a roll of paper towels next to the coffeepot.”
“Poor thing. But it was just an accident,” Katy replied.
“She feels responsible as head of the hostess committee.”
“A punch bowl broke,” Katy protested, as though that would explain everything to her dad.
He pointed, “That your car?”
Katy nodded. “David’s moving it for me. He and Ivan came to load up Elizabeth’s gifts. They were the first men on the scene.”
“I’m going to go ask the firemen if there’s anything I can do to help. We don’t want the sanctuary to burn.”
Katy noticed other churchmen who had heard about the fire were starting to mill about the parking lot. “Okay.”
“I’d feel better if you’d go home. Your mom’s worried.”
She realized that even with David’s coat, she was shivering. “Okay. But be careful, Dad.”
Off to the side, Will Landis was helping his wife to their car. Katy hurried over, asking Lil, “Your mom going to be okay?”
“I think so. It hit her when the firemen checked us over.”
“You didn’t get burned?”
“No.” Lil crossed her trembling arms.
“You in shock?”
“Just cold. My throat’s raw, too.”
“Want me to take you home?”
Lil’s teeth began to clatter. “No. I’m going home with my folks.”
Katy watched Lil get in the car. Turning her back to the surreal scene, Katy hugged her arms against the cold and trudged to her own car. Behind her, another crash sounded. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw more of the fellowship hall had caved in. Fire illuminated the winter’s night sky. She gripped her car’s door handle and instantly flinched at the pain. How would this fire affect their small congregation?
CHAPTER 10
A few nights later, Katy was rebandaging her hand when the telephone rang. From the living room, where she lay on the couch buried to her chin in a quilt and nursing a box of tissues, Mom called, “Git dat?”
Tearing off the medical tape and pressing it in place, Katy hurried to the phone and cradled it in the crook of her neck. David’s voice tumbled into her consciousness, low and masculine. “You busy?”
“No, I just finished the dishes.”
Her stomach did a little somersault until she remembered the coldness of their kiss. With his bravery at the fire, she had forgotten about that. She brought her attention back to what he was saying. He wasn’t saying anything particularly personal, he was just talking about the fire.
“Elizabeth’s fine”—David’s voice held a hint of hesitance or despondency—“fretting over some handmade blankets that got ruined in the fire, but otherwise good. She told me you got most of the gifts out of there.”
Twisting the phone cord, Katy replied, “I just reacted. It was weird.”
“You’re an angel. Elizabeth thinks so, too. Now she’s embarrassed about the way she acted, obsessed over the gifts. She’s going to apologize.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m sure it was just a mixture of shock and probably had something to do with being pregnant.”
“That’s what Ivan told her. But about the fire, the men are having a cleanup day this coming Saturday. It’ll be a long day, and my dad asked me to help with the chores afterward to make up for the time away from the farm. Guess what I’m getting at is, can we postpone our dinner date?”
Disappointment rushed over her. “Of course. We can do that anytime.” Unless … was he trying to break up? “Or we don’t have to go at all,” she added.
“Hey, I want to see you. It isn’t that.”
She didn’t reply because everything had become so confusing with David that she didn’t know what she wanted anymore.
After some silence, he asked, “Did you do your nanny thing today?”
Leaning against the wall, she worked the kinks out of the phone cord. Maybe he knew about the three-date proposition and wasn’t going to give her the third date. Maybe he was going to dangle it. She’d deserve that. “Yeah. Addison broke Tyler’s iPod.”
“How’d she do that?”
“I have no idea, don’t even know how they work, but there was some kind of struggle going on in the backseat on the way home from school. Tyler can be a real imp.”
“Boys will be boys. Maybe you need to pack Addison a bigger snack.” Katy couldn’t help but grin. David’s listening abilities amazed her. He really understood and remembered when she’d talked about work. “Did they get in trouble with Tammy?”
“Big-time.”
“Oh yeah? She take away his BB gun?”
“She promised him a new iPod. A better one. And Addison is getting her own so they don’t have to fight over Tyler’s.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
“I know. But I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than talk about a couple of spoiled kids.”
“Nothing’s more important than talking to you. Why haven’t we talked on the phone before?”
So maybe he wasn’t breaking up with her? Unless he was baiting her so he could dangle the third date. She hated to end the call until she knew exactly where they stood. “I made the mistake of asking Tammy what kind of discipline I should administer. She got all white-knuckled and said I should just tell her when they misbehaved, and she’d deal with it.”
“By rewarding them?”
“Exactly. Now my hands are really tied. I asked her if she’s looking for another nanny. She said the agencies were too expensive. She was thinking of arranging her schedule differently and asked if I could babysit two days a week, on the days I come anyway. She’s a pro at getting her way.”
“That’s not something you want then?”
“Hardly. I told her I’d think about it. If I hadn’t stalled, I’d have ended up manipulated into a yes on the spot, and—” She dropped the phone cord, twirled her ponytail, and sighed.
“Guess you need to practice all the ways to say no. There’s a lot of country songs on that subject.”
She remembered his car radio, although he’d only turned it to classical music on their date. “You like country music?”
“I listen to it sometimes. Anyway, don’t practice your no on me, okay?”
“If you’re a gentleman, I won’t have to.”
Later
that night, Vernon Yoder found Marie asleep on the sofa. He leaned over her and lightly shook her shoulder. “Wake up, honey.”
“What? I’b just sleeby. How was your meeding?”
“Mennonite Mutual will cover the fire, and we’ve decided to rebuild, and while we’re at it, to add those Sunday school rooms we’ve been needing.”
She sniffled. “Zounds like work.”
He grabbed a tissue and handed it to her, easing onto the couch beside her. “We’re forming a committee so the elders don’t get bogged down.”
Dabbing her nose, she asked, “Who’s on the gammittee?”
“Maybe your lovely daughter.”
Marie jerked to a sitting position. “Why Gaty?”
“First they tried to get someone from the hostess committee. Lil’s mom is feeling low right now, so then Lil’s name came up. We called her from the meeting. She said she couldn’t because she works nights, but she suggested Katy. For some reason, the elders thought she was a good candidate. We tried calling, but the phone was busy.”
“Dabe Miller called; then I vell asleeb.”
“I didn’t want her on the committee.”
“Why not?”
“Because Jake Byler will be the project superintendent. They called him, and he’s already agreed.”
“Oh no.”
“Talking to David, huh? I guess that’s a good sign.”
“Dey sounded habby.”
“We’ll just have to keep praying about it. You have sick eyes, honey. Let’s go to bed.”
Later that week, Katy caught lingering whiffs of a smoky odor as she hurried past a yellow ribbon that fenced off the charred disaster. She shouldered the door to the meetinghouse. Low laughter floated to her from the sanctuary, where the building committee was scheduled to meet. She had never served on any committees before and wasn’t sure what to expect. She figured she was here as Lil’s proxy, but that seemed fair since the elders had asked Lil first.
Curious to see who else would serve on the committee, she stepped through the open double doors that separated the foyer from the sanctuary and made her way down the gray-carpeted center aisle. Dark-stained pews flanked her on either side. She had almost reached the front of the room when her steps faltered.
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